Parents in this study frequently used questions and commands but were unlikely to use praise with their children when interacting during free play, which demonstrated that parents used informative communication more than affective communication. In general, children tend to express their emotions during interactions, especially with parents. In this study, children predominantly showed compliant interaction behaviors including response to questions and compliance to commands and demonstrated a low level of playfulness while interacting with their parents at home.
Previous studies described the quality of PCI in terms of parenting styles, patterns, and contents. Eyberg, Nelson, Duke, and Boggs introduced the DPICS-III, a measuring instrument of PCI[16], based on parenting styles such as authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive as described by Baumrind[17]. Development-specific behavioral coding of PCIs has been widely used in early interventions and child welfare practice. Recently, Shvedovskaya and Archakova addressed the activity-based typology of PCI according to conflictual, harmonious, distant, and dominant (divided into “dominant parent-subordinate child” and “dominant child-indulgent parent” subgroups) types, which differ both in activity (role distribution, character of realization of task-oriented collaboration) and emotional (emotional vector of interactions, emotional reaction to success or failure) aspects of interactions[22]. They suggested that the domination-subordination misbalance caused potential difficulties in further development. The dominant interaction behaviors of parents' questions and commands, and children's response and compliance observed in the present study is similar to a Chinese study[23], an American study[24], and a Russian study [22]. Specifically, in the Russian study, the most frequent type of PCI was dominant parent-subordinate child.
Children in this study mostly demonstrated compliance behaviors when interacting with parents, meaning that there were evident signs of fitting into the social frame. Nevertheless, children could avoid fulfilling their expectations, occasionally express negative feelings, and distance themselves from social rules. Bühler-Niederberger and Schwittek found and argued that young Kyrgyz children were more likely to accept authority and even be proud of their compliance, which demonstrated the hierarchical order taught to children of this age[25]; however, this could develop into aggression in situations in which children’s sense of self is undermined.
Children showed a low level of playfulness in their free play with parents at home; in particular, they showed poor sense of humor and low cognitive spontaneity. The characteristics of sense of humor, such as telling funny stories, joking with parents, and gently teasing others during the play, seem to be slightly demanding expectations for the young children in the study. Although this playfulness instrument was validated for the age range of the study participants, further studies to evaluate such demanding items are recommended. Cognitive spontaneity is mostly related to child cognition and creativity, and the way an individual performs a task[26]. Children who are more playful than their peers perform better at divergent-thinking tasks[27]. In another study, gifted children demonstrated higher levels of physical, social, and cognitive play styles than their peers of normal intelligence[28]. Although international efforts such as UNICEF Early Child Development (ECD) have continued to tackle the decreased cognitive abilities caused by child malnutrition and related stunting prevalent in underserved areas, the low level of cognitive spontaneity identified in this study may warrant further study.
The findings of this study on PCI reflect comparatively the current parenting practices in Kyrgyzstan. A UNICEF report noted critically that current Kyrgyz parents spend little time with preschool children, pay little attention to their development, and practice a harsh discipline[29, 30]. According to UNICEF MICS, less than one-third of mothers spent time with children to promote learning and school readiness, and only 2.8% of fathers did[13]. Moreover, more than half of children experienced psychological aggression or physical punishment; Over a half of children aged under five play with two or more types of playthings. Furthermore, cultural practices such as reading books with the child, drawing, playing musical instruments, and learning games such as puzzles were very rarely performed. Teaching of rules of good behavior (to obey, say hello and goodbye, tidy up toys, etc.) to little children, allowing them some independent but at the same time prudent behavior, was also rarely practiced.
However, WHO and UNICEF introduced the framework of “nurturing care to help children survive and thrive to transform health and child potential”. Responsive parenting is one of the critical domains in nurturing care. Child health experts found that a nurturing atmosphere was a critical point for better child development outcomes and even future wage differences[31]. The importance of a nurturing environment has been considered an essential condition of successful parenting and child growth and development. In the dyadic interaction, parents have a crucial role in the quality of the interaction. Post-Soviet parents in CIS countries, who had fewer opportunities of exposure to positive parenting practices in their family environments, may convey less nurturing care towards their children, which inevitably affects the whole parent-child dyad, as demonstrated in the present study. Social changes can affect general family practices including child caring, which influences the quality of PCI.
After enjoying extraordinary, centralized, nationwide, universal, free-of-charge childcare services during the Soviet period in Central Asia, the situation of Kyrgyz parents deteriorated with the rapid decline in childcare support in the post-Soviet social system, which seriously impacted on the quality of PCI in Kyrgyz families[3]. UNICEF and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Kyrgyz Republic have been working to address the shortage of early learning and school readiness programs in the country. Only 22.7% of children aged 36–59 months are attending an early childhood education program. Considering the PCI shaped by the sociocultural context, it is necessary to develop strategies for enhancing PCI not just among families but also to raise social awareness.
This study has several limitations. Firstly, it included children from a narrow age range, only one father as a participant and small number of samples, which may limit the research findings’ generalizability. Secondly, it did not contain child play preferences in the video-audio recordings, which may have potentially impacted on child interaction behaviors as well as the level of playfulness. Lastly, the lack of previous studies on PCI in CIS countries including Kyrgyzstan may limit the comparison of findings. Therefore, the results should be carefully interpreted, specifically, in Rogoff’s perspectives on children's development from cultural psychology [32]. Nevertheless, the multinational collaboration between Kyrgyz and Korean researchers in the overall research process, especially data collection, coding, and interpretation, may provide valuable resources to ensure better approaches to international development efforts.